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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23887480">Keep On Walking, Come What Will</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre'>KLStarre</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series), Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(probably? not by a lot though), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Pre-Canon, Vengeance Pact</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:41:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23887480</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"You let her die," the king says.</p><p>(Or, the Princess Lazuli is dead. Theo and Amethar both failed.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Theobald Gumbar &amp; Amethar Rocks, Theobald Gumbar &amp; Lazuli Rocks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Keep On Walking, Come What Will</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Truly no idea about how the timeline of this one works; I think it's relying on Theo being a knight before the War. None of what I write about Theo and Lazuli is romantic.</p><p>ADDENDUM: This was written very early on in the season, and while it's still good, some of the characterization may be a little bit wonky.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sir Theobald Gumbar feels naked without his armor. The stone of the throne room floor is cold through the fabric of his pants, and his back hurts from kneeling, head bowed. The room is empty. He has been here for almost an hour, he thinks, offering himself to the empty throne, waiting for the king who had summoned him. It does not cross his mind to stand.</p><p>            It is not the stone that is most uncomfortable, or the lack of the weight of his sheathed sword on his hip. It is not the waiting, or the knowing that he’s failed. It is that the shield he has worn on his back for nearly ten years is gone, taken from him by order of the king. The king he would die for.</p><p>            The king he had failed.</p><p>            It takes King Amethar stepping in front of him, saying, “You may look up, Theobald,” for Theo to notice that he’s entered the room, and King Amethar is not a quiet man.</p><p>            Theo looks up. His gaze is level with the king’s belt, and he would look down, again, if he could.</p><p>            “You let her die,” the king says.</p><p>            “Yes, my king.” Theo closes his eyes. She had told him to run. She had dismissed him, and he had trusted her, and it turned out that he was right to trust her, but she was a fool to trust him. He had sworn to serve, to sacrifice, to protect, but when she had told him to run, he had. And now she was dead.</p><p>            “Stand up, Theobald.”</p><p>            Theo stands. It feels almost too easy, lacking the weight of armor and sword and shield.</p><p>            “No defense?”</p><p>            Theo is looking somewhere over the king’s right shoulder. He cannot read his eyes. “There is no defense, my king.”</p><p>            There is silence. The throne room is expansive, and vaulted, and the silence echoes. King Amethar walks away from Theo, towards a window, and then seems to change his mind and comes back. “I let her die, too,” he says.</p><p>            Theo would never, could never, blame the king. After Rococoa, Citrina, Sapphria, all dead, King Amethar had been left with responsibility over the whole army. Responsibility to lead a kingdom, even though he had not yet been king. Lazuli had been queen, before she died, but she was a mage, not a tactician. Lazuli had been queen, and Theo had been her knight, and King Amethar was in charge of an army, not of keeping her alive.</p><p>            So, Theo would never blame the king. But he would also never contradict him. There is silence again.</p><p>            “Do you miss her?” the king asks, and Theo can’t help himself, he looks him in the eyes, and there are tears. Theo has already cried as much as it is possible to cry, for Lazuli. For the queen who had taught him magic even though it took him months to learn a spell, for the princess who raised him, for the archmage who was going to change the world.</p><p>            “More than anything.”</p><p>            “Yeah,” the king says, and blinks, and the tears are gone. “Yeah.” And then, “Never thought it would come down to me.”</p><p>            “You’ll be a good king, your grace.” Theo had followed his summons expecting to be executed, and he would have knelt for the axe as willingly as he had knelt to wait. He doesn’t know what’s changed, but he knows it’s something. Maybe it was taking the blame. Maybe it is the mutual understanding that there is no defense, that she is dead no matter who let it happen, that the world will be worse without her in it.</p><p>            “I won’t. And drop that ‘your grace’ bullshit. ‘My lord’ is more than enough, if you have to use something.”</p><p>            “Of course, my lord.”</p><p>            The king talks over Theo’s response. “I won’t be a quarter of the ruler she would have been, but we’re damn sure gonna avenge her. When this war is over, I don’t give a shit who our allies are, we’re gonna find out how she died, <em>specifically</em>, and we’re gonna make them regret it.”</p><p>            “We, my lord?”</p><p>            “Yeah, Theobald. We. She was working on magic weapons before everything went to hell, a sword and shield. They’re waiting for you, if you’ll be my knight, instead of hers.”</p><p>            “I serve the throne, my lord,” Theo says, and his hand goes instinctually to the hilt of a sword that isn’t there. “I serve you.”</p>
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